


To Kettch a Thief (or: You’ve got to be chitin me)

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Gen, Storini Crystal Prowler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: Otherwise known as that time when Phanan’s pet insect and a fake Ewok pilot busted a black market ring.





	To Kettch a Thief (or: You’ve got to be chitin me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaerstyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy the shenanigans.

Wedge Antilles, hero of the New Republic and commander of Wraith Squadron, stared at the datapad on his desk and wondered when, exactly, he had taken leave of his senses.

“Wraith Ten to Leader.” Wes sounded entirely too cheerful for Wedge's own good. If Wraith Squadron was the flying lunatic asylum its detractors insisted it resembled, then Wes Janson was the lunatic at the helm. He was also Wedge’s XO, a trusted friend and adviser.

“Don’t hit your head with that datapad,” advised Wes. “You could break it. We need it.”

“Which, the datapad or my head?” Wedge asked wryly. 

Wes’s response demonstrated touching concern for his commander’s wellbeing. “The datapad, of course.”

“Oh, good, I was afraid your priorities might be mixed up.” Wedge returned the datapad to his XO for safekeeping. “I was actually going to hit my head on the desk.”

“Then by all means, oh fearless leader, proceed with denting your desk. I can continue my report at a more convenient time... say, when your concussion heals?” Wes half-rose from his chair.

“Sit!” Wedge barked. The blank spot on his desk beckoned. He sighed. “Take it from the top. _Slowly_.”

“O-o-o-k-a-a-y, W-e-d-d-g-g—” Janson choked on a sudden attack of survival instinct and continued at a normal pace. “Skrittch and Kettch busted a black market ring on Chrylor.”

Wedge pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Questions?” Wes asked, all innocence and good cheer.

“Who?”

“Face Loran and Ton Phanan led the mission, with support from Dia Passik and Lara Notsil. Oh, and Squeaky.”

“And?”

“Skrittch and Kettch.”

Wedge opened his eyes to glare at his XO. _“Who?”_ he repeated.

Wes looked hurt. “You don’t remember Lieutenant Kettch? After everything he’s done for you?”

“I remember Kettch,” Wedge said through gritted teeth. “I meant the other one.”

“Skrittch?”

“Yes.”

Wes smiled beatifically. “Oh, you know him too, boss. He’s Phanan’s roommate.”

Wedge frowned. “Phanan doesn’t have a roommate, unless you mean Face?”

“His _other_ roommate.”

Wedge’s frown deepened. “Dia? Lara?” As a rule, he didn’t meddle in the romantic lives of his pilots. But if two of the Wraiths had actually moved in together without even tacit permission, that was stretching things too far.

But Wes shook his head. “His _other_  other roommate.”

Nonplussed, Wedge raised his eyebrows.

“You know, Skrittch! The crystal critter?” Wes mimed claws scratching at the air. “Skritchy-scratchy, creepy-crawly?”

Very slowly and very gently, Wedge lowered his head to rest on the desk. The cool metal soothed his forehead. Maybe if he didn’t open his eyes again, Wes would go away. “Phanan’s pet insect went on a mission?” he asked his hopefully empty office after a long interval.

“And caught a thief,” Wes answered promptly. “Several thieves, actually.”

Wedge let his head rise and fall with a thump. And again.

“I told you not to hit your head. We need it.” Wes’s plaintive voice was not drowned out by the ringing of the metal, or by the ringing in Wedge’s ears.

With a long-suffering sigh, Wedge raised his head far enough to prop it on one fist. 

“Take it from the top?” guessed Wes.

It was inevitable, Wedge thought wearily. Sooner or later, someone was bound to crack under the strain.

Wedge was starting to suspect it would be him.

* * *

Ton Phanan glared at Face. 

Face didn’t take it personally. Phanan’s artificial eye always glared. He suspected his wingmate had picked it for just that reason. Surely there were less intimidating prosthetics available to the bacta-allergic population of the galaxy. Not that the glowing red eye and bare metal plates didn’t have a certain aesthetic. 

“Did you want something?” snapped Phanan.

Huh. Maybe he _was_  actually glaring this time. In Face’s defense, it was hard to tell.

“What’s chewing on your power cables?” he asked instead of answering.

“Not Skrittch.” Phanan looked morosely down at an empty container on his desk. “He’s missing again.”

“It wasn’t me!” Face protested automatically.

There was no doubt about it, this time Phanan was definitely glaring. “I know that, bantha-brain.”

“Suppose one of the newbies is a jokester?” Face’s money was on Lara Notsil. She could certainly keep a secret, and she had a wicked sense of humor when she relaxed enough to let it show. Unlike Dia. Face couldn’t seem to make her smile no matter how much of a fool he made of himself. Even Myn Donos smiled more than the Twi’lek woman. 

“Base to Face, are you receiving?” Phanan tapped the metal plate covering the left half of his face. 

“I always knew your head was hollow,” Face retorted absently.

Phanan rolled his good eye. The mechanical glow of his artificial one stayed eerily fixed in place. “Are you mooning over our new recruits? Let’s see, three beautiful women and a reedy slicer. I bet it’s him. Castin Donn. His name is poetry.”

For once, Face refused to rise to the bait. “If you can moon over your missing insect, I can be captivated by the poetry of code-slicing.”

Phanan nodded knowingly. “Or the Twi’lek woman.”

“Her name is Dia.”

Phanan smirked. “So I was right. You know, I never did think much of your acting. Can’t say that it’s improved with age.”

“You mean I’m not like a fine wine?” Face pressed a hand to his heart. “You wound me. I shall never again feel true joy.” He sighed heavily, gauged his audience, and fell on Phanan‘s bunk in a dramatic swoon. “Well, I’ll just have to be Brains instead of Beauty, then, and solve the mystery of your missing arthropod. Is Skrattch still there? Have you checked the locks?”

“Yes, and yes. Unlike some people in this squadron, I have the rudiments of intelligence.”

Face wiped imaginary sweat from his brow in exaggerated relief. “The commander will be glad to hear that. I’m sure he’s been wondering whether you had any at all. I know the rest of us were. We had a pool going — I wonder if I won?”

There was that glare again. Face wondered if Phanan practiced it in the mirror or if it just came naturally.

“If Grinder were here, I’d say he did it.” Phanan’s face looked bleak for a brief moment. 

Face sat up. “He’d curse you for saying that, you know. Repeating a prank demonstrates a deplorable lack of creativity.”

Phanan shrugged. “Guess someone doesn’t think so.” He drummed his fingers against a domed trash receptacle painted like an astromech. “Looks like we have a copycat on our hands.”

Face frowned in thought. “Not necessarily. Your pet isn’t the only one missing around here. Someone stole Kettch." 

The other pilot grinned. “The baby Wraiths are getting in on the action?"

“No.” Face plucked the stuffed Ewok neatly out from its hiding place between Ton’s bunk and the wall. “I mean the _real_ Kettch." He shook the fuzzy toy meaningfully. 

"Did I do a lobotomy on you in my sleep?" Phanan demanded. Face was used to having insanity questioned, but no one did it so eloquently as Ton Phanan. “There is no real Kettch. He’s a figment of Janson’s warped imagination.”

Face wagged a finger. “Ah, but he is also an official Hawkbat, thanks to Castin’s slicing prowess and a bit of brilliant voice acting and acoustic manipulation by yours truly.” Face bowed, and then frowned petulantly when thunderous applause failed to materialize.

Phanan rolled his good eye. “How can someone steal an Ewok that doesn’t exist?” 

“Someone stole his identity. It’s no laughing matter,” Face warned, although truth be told he wished Phanan  _would_ laugh at him. It had been some time since he’d heard more than a sardonic chuckle out of his friend. That worried Face, but he filed it away to deal with after the current emergency. As if Wraith Squadron’s mission brief was ever anything _but_ emergencies. “If Zsinj gets wind of _another_  Lieutenant Kettch running amok in his territory—"

“Then there goes our whole scheme. Brought down by a fake Ewok.” Phanan sighed. “Antilles will have a fit. And command will have us all on convoy escort duty until we die of boredom.”

Face picked up the ersatz Ewok and regarded its innocuously fuzzy face. “Not if we fix it before he gets back.”

To his credit, Phanan kept a straight face. “How?”

“Simple: we set a thief to catch a thief.” The old holodrama refrain sprang automatically to his lips. “More accurately, we set a Kettch to catch a Kettch.” Face tossed the stuffed Ewok in the air, half expecting Phanan to snatch it from him and start beating him with it. 

But his wingmate merely sighed and rolled his eye. “That’s a terrible pun, even for you.”

Face shrugged modestly. “Sometimes I rise above my lines, sometimes I sink to their level.”

“You can stop sinking,” advised Phanan. “You’ve hit lower level Coruscant. I thought you would have been familiar with the bedrock level of humor already.”

Face contemplated throwing the Ewok toy at his friend, but decided to take the high road. He’d put self-expanding foam in Phanan‘s prosthetics cleaning kit instead.

* * *

The curses echoed down the long corridor. 

Phanan poked his head out of his room. Only his head — the rest of him was still covered with foam, presumably thanks to Face. 

“Problems?” he called down. All the pilots' quarters were converted from storage units stacked three-high on both sides of the corridor, which had earned the nickname of the Trench. Phanan's quarters were on the second level, which he'd thought was mild protection against pranksters, given the racket that flight boots made on the metal staircase. Ah well. Next time he'd know to take additional intruder detection measures.   

Identifiable from above only by her blonde hair, Lara Notsil was pressed against the wall immediately below Phanan’s room. It gave him an unparalleled view; uncomfortably, he averted his gaze.  Lara had already shot him down — gently, no less — and wouldn’t appreciate his leering from above.

Still, he couldn’t quite stop himself from commenting. “If you’re looking for Face, he isn’t here, but I’d be delighted to take a message.”

“I’m not looking for Face,” Lara growled.

Phanan brightened. “You’re looking for me?”

She peered up at him. “Actually, if you're willing kill a killer insect, yes.”

Phanan yelped. “My glass prowler! You found him? Don’t hurt him!” 

“Don’t hurt _him_?” Lara’s outraged shout echoed. Phanan grimaced. Hawkbat Base may be operating with a skeleton crew just now, but shouting drew curious onlookers, and he had been hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. “I’ll be right down,” he called and ducked back into his quarters. He looked at the congealing chaos, wondering which unidentifiable blob might be Skrittch’s cage. “Stang,” he muttered.

“Never mind, I’m coming up — son of a Sith, what happened in here?” Lara stood in the doorway, mouth agape, foam oozing around her ankles.

“Shut the door!” snapped Phanan. “It’ll escape.”

Lara paled. “You have another one?”

“No — well, yes, I do, but I meant the foam.”

Phanan rummaged in his closet and tossed Lara a towel. “Here, find yourself a seat.”

“Thanks. Is it booby-trapped too?”

“Not that I know of,” he said honestly. “But sit carefully.”

Lara snorted. “Men,” she muttered. She kicked something that looked like a chair or packing crate, watched it wobble like gelatin, and threw the towel down in disgust. “I’ll stand, thanks.”

Maybe he could redirect Lara’s ire and simultaneously put her devious mind to use inventing a suitable revenge for Face. There was a delightful tonic from Rytollan Prime that was promising — it would turn human skin bright orange, a near-perfect match for New Republic flight suits. Phanan wondered what the effect would be on Face’s scar. Maybe he could finally get the damn fool to have it surgically removed.

Speaking of damn fools... he probably shouldn’t turn his back to Lara. In that temper, he thought, she just might be lethal. 

Which was ridiculous. She was a Wraith. Of course she was lethal.

“So where did you find my glass prowler?” he asked, striving for a combination of casual and courteous.

“In the shower.” Her raised eyebrow dared him to comment.

“Is it still there?” he asked.

“You’re welcome to find out. I’ll sleep in my X-wing before going back while that creature is still in there.” She shuddered.

Phanan smiled. “Did you just invite me into your shower, Flight Officer Notsil?”

“Not while I’m in it.” She smiled sweetly. “But you’re welcome to be eviscerated by that... what did you call it? Prowler? How appropriate. I’ve heard that people gravitate towards pets that most resemble them.”

Phanan barked a laugh. “Very nice, Notsil. That’s the most diplomatic way I’ve ever been called an insect and a creep. I applaud your tact and your tactics.”

Lara grinned. “And I applaud your decorating skills. Is this what they call _new wave_?”

Phanan looked around at the chaos in his quarters. Flecks of foam had solidified on the ceiling, and gobs of it had halted mid-ooze down the walls. “It’s purely functional,” he assured her. “All-in-one cleaning foam. When I get it all up, the place will be spotless.”

Lara kept a straight face. “I’m sure it’s never been so clean. Will Face help you with all this?”

“Oh, I think he’s helped enough,” Phanan drawled. 

As if the very words had conjured him, Face appeared in the doorway. He took in the foam, the discarded towels, and Lara. “Not my kink, but I’ll leave you to it.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Phanan could have strangled, eviscerated, vivisected or otherwise damaged his best friend and wingmate with any of a multitude of innocuous objects at hand. Unfortunately, they were mostly buried under the rapidly congealing foam. 

“Shove it up your airlock,” Lara retorted absently.

Face grinned. “And good morning to you too.”

“I assume this is your handiwork.” Phanan’s dry tone left little room for doubt.

The very picture of wounded innocence, Face shook his head mournfully. “You know what they say about the word _assume_ , don’t you? It makes an _ass_  out of _you_  and _me_.”

“Too late. You were already an ass.” Phanan said complacently. He grunted as he finally spotted a transparisteel cage high on a shelf. Face must have put it there. At least he was a considerate prankster. Phanan tugged the cage down and thrust it at his wingmate. “Here.” 

Face grabbed it reflexively and looked inside. “It’s empty,” he said in surprise. “Did you lose the other one?”

Lara twitched.

“No, Skrattch is up on my bunk.” Phanan motioned to a second cage half-hidden by a blanket. “That’s for Skrittch. Lara found him.”

“Do you _sleep_ with them?” Lara asked in a strangled voice.

Phanan batted his eyes. “Why, do you have someone else in mind for the job?” 

Lara opened her mouth for a presumably stinging retort. Then her gaze swung towards Face and darted between the two men. “I thought... never mind. Forget it. Just make yourselves useful for once and get that thing out of my shower.”

Face saluted, spun, and promptly got stuck in the doorway. 

“The cage is too big,” Lara pointed out unnecessarily. “Turn it sideways.”

“Your head is too big,” added Phanan. “Turn it inside-out.”

“Tuck in your elbows.” 

“Suck in your gut. What have you been eating? Squeaky’s food isn’t _that_ good.”

“All right!” Face laughed when the litany of advice paused. He squeezed through the door, hoisted the transparisteel cage on one shoulder, and struck a heroic pose. “Never fear! Your rescuer is— Sithspit!” He slipped and nearly fell in a puddle of foam that had leaked out under Phanan’s doorway. 

“My hero,” Lara managed between whoops of laughter. 

Phanan smiled. He had managed to turn the tables on Face and recover his missing glass prowler — and in a flash of inspiration, he knew how to solve their ersatz Ewok problem.

It was a good morning after all.

* * *

Face chose Downtime as more neutral territory to launch his next mission into motion. The ship’s cafe also had the advantage of being marginally tidier than Phanan’s quarters.

“We’ll let you in on something big.” Face leaned forward invitingly. Conspiratorially. Irresistibly—

Lara groaned. “Not another secret mission.”

“But the last one went so well!” Face wheedled... wheedlingly. Was that a word, he wondered?

“I wound up in a bacta tank,” Lara reminded him.

“ _After_ catching the bad guy.” 

Phanan shoved his chair up to the table and his two credits into the conversation. “You might want to specify that timing in the mission plan. And it’s only secret until the Commander gets back from Coruscant.”

Lara swirled her drink with a delicate motion that Face wouldn’t have expected from an Aldivian farm girl. “Why not ask Castin?” she asked.

“He doesn’t have your sense of humor,” Face answered tactfully.

“Shoved it out an airlock,” confirmed Phanan, “right after he shot off his mouth. If he’s not confined to base now, he will be.”

“Mm-hm. And how’d it work out for you the last time you ran a mission behind Antilles’ back?”

Phanan and Face exchanged a long look. “This is different,” said Face.

“I have a plan,” said Phanan.

Lara sighed. “Sounds the same to me.”

The scrape of a chair across the floor was the only herald of Dia’s arrival. The Twi’lek woman sat backwards, her arms draped over the back of her chair, and gestured for Face to continue with a twirl of her finger.

“Someone has stolen Kettch’s identity,” he repeated for Dia’s benefit. “I had Grinder keeping tabs on our aliases. His program is still running, and it found an uptick in chatter about Ewok pilots way outside this sector.”

“How far outside?” Dia asked.

Face consulted his datapad. “Chrylor.” 

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s not surprising,” said Lara. “Backwater agrarian world — no jokes, please. Their chief exports are arrowroot, an unpronounceable Ithorian nutritional supplement, glass-cane fibers, and cork.”

Phanan snorted. “Who uses cork anymore?”

“Vineyards,” Lara answered. “The astronomically expensive ones for the Imperial moffs, governors and warlords who like to pretend they live in olden days. The same moffs, governors and warlords who employ special droids to open corked bottles, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Face echoed, but he couldn’t help wondering how she came by that information. Did Aldivy export cork? Or was this one more example of what Lara had learned while being held captive by Admiral Trigit? 

“Chrylor,” prompted Dia, drawing Face’s attention away from — well, from everything, if he was being honest with himself. 

“Chrylor,” he repeated dutifully. Any further words eluded his grasp.

Fortunately, Phanan had his wing. “The glass-cane fiber industry is our way in.” He carefully extracted Skrittch from the front pocket of his flight suit. Lara didn’t flinch, but she eased her chair back from the table. 

To Face’s delight, Dia reached over to tickle the little arthropod under its mandibles. 

“Cute,” she said.

Phanan smiled. “A fellow connoisseur of cuteness. Have I told you how much I adore you?”

Dia’s answering smile was predatory. “Have I told you how much I admire insects that devour their mates?”

Face decided it was time he took back control of his mission briefing. “Glass-cane fibers are used as structural reinforcement in all kinds of shipbuilding composites. It’s Chrylor’s most valuable crop by far. Storini crystal prowlers are banned as pests because they cut down glass-fiber stalks to feed their young, before the nymphs’ mandibles develop enough to decapitate living prey.”

“Eurgh,” said Lara.

Skrittch stretched himself to his full height and vibrated his rearmost legs against each other. _Skriiiiitch-skrt-skriiiitch._

“Aren’t they wonderful?” Phanan sighed rapturously.

“So how does a banned insect get us any closer to our identity thief?” Dia asked.

Face deferred to Phanan. “It’s your plan.”

“Oh joy,” muttered Lara.

“There’s a healthy black market ring dealing in crystal prowlers and other methods of agricultural sabotage. Skrittch is our ‘in’ to the local den of iniquity. As near as I can tell, he’s a breeding male. As Dia so delicately pointed out, those can be rare due to a pronounced predisposition to sexual cannibalism.”

Face winced.

“That’s the first thing you’ve said about them that I like,” said Lara thoughtfully.

Phanan’s smile weakened. 

Skrittch waved his saw-toothed crystalline forelegs in the air in blissful ignorance of the subject matter.

“So we show up on Chrylor, offer your critter for sale through illegal channels, and hope to run into your thief?” Dia radiated skepticism. “Doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

When she put it like that, Face couldn’t disagree. So he shrugged. “We’ll improvise. They’re just farmers, after all. How hard could it be?”

* * *

It wasn’t long before Face regretted the turn of phrase, but he couldn’t very well back out. It was, after all, his discovery and at least partially his plan, which made it his responsibility. Phanan refused to let his delicate darling Skrittch out of his sight, and there was never any question about breaking up the duo that Antilles had called the greatest concentration of sarcasm this side of the Core worlds. Lara accepted the invitation with an air of weary inevitability,  and Dia invited herself along on the grounds that another woman was needed to counterbalance the general idiocy of testosterone. It was Dia who suggested bringing Squeaky along to impersonate an Ewok (“It wouldn’t be the first time,” sighed the droid) to draw out the fake Kettch.

“After all,” she pointed out, “their fake Kettch got our attention, and ours is the original. If the identity thief hears of yet another Ewok pilot running around, he’ll probably think someone is trying to copy his scam. He’ll show up to confront us, we bag him and come home.”

“What makes you think it’s a him?” Lara asked before she could think better of it.

Face grinned. “That’s my girl. Standing up for female criminals everywhere.”

Lara sniffed. “I’m not your girl.”

Phanan opened his mouth, but Lara rounded on him before he could say anything. “I’m not yours either.” 

He shot her a reproving look. “I was only going to suggest that we launch now, and argue semantics later. Unless any of you reprobates wants to still be here when Janson gets back from leave?”

Face smacked himself in the forehead. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

“Your brain?” asked Phanan.

“Your sanity?” suggested Lara.

“Nicer friends?” Dia added with a smile: 

“Yes, yes, and yes, but I was thinking of Janson.” Face snapped his fingers. “Where does Runt keep his holo-recorder?”

* * *

 

They took the shuttle _Narra_ , Face’s bag of tricks, Kel’s bag of explosives, one vociferously disapproving protocol droid, and one chittering, glittering glass prowler.

They left a time-delayed note for their XO. Face recorded it in a dramatic reading worthy of his boyhood holodramas.

Wes Janson solemnly regarded the datapad clutched in the arms of the toy Ewok with trepidation. When the message finally came to life, Wes watched it through twice before breaking into Wedge’s office and co-opting a flask of Corellian brandy. It wasn’t Whyren’s Reserve, but it was still strong enough to blur the edges around the glowing words with which the conspirators had described their unsanctioned mission.

It began: _Yub yub, Lieutenant!_

 _We know Kettch isn't real, and we know_ you _know he's not real, but Kettch doesn't know that, so we went on a mission to rescue him from the nefarious clutches of cork farmers on Chrylor. We took one of Phanan's bugs. The other is in your quarters. Please find him, and then feed him. Sorry, we don't know how they keep getting out of their cages. Just look on the bright side: we could have told you we left_  both _glass prowlers in your quarters, and you would have kept looking for one of them until we got back._

_By the way, if we don't get back, you'd better warn Commander Antilles that Kettch's identity has been compromised, maybe the whole Hawkbats cover._

_Oh, and we took Squeaky too. We knew you wouldn't miss him._

Actual mission parameters followed, along with emergency contact details. Wes read and absorbed them, but the words  _yub yub_ danced before his eyes, distracting him.

It was inevitable, he supposed. In the flying lunatic asylum that was Wraith Squadron, sooner or later someone was bound to crack under the strain. 

Wes was starting to suspect it would be him. 

* * *

 

Wedge rubbed his eyes until he saw stars, but even the kaleidoscopic patterns on his eyelids couldn’t erase the words from the mission report.

“So the Wraiths—”

“And Squeaky,” Wes interrupted.

Wedge sighed. “So the Wraiths and Squeaky—”

“And Skrittch.”

Wedge opened his eyes long enough to glare af his XO. Unfornately, Wes was inured.

“Fine. The Wraiths, Squeaky and Skrittch went to Chrylor and impersonated a fake Ewok that was impersonating _our_  fake Ewok in order to catch the identity thief and stop word from getting to Zsinj.” Wedge raised an eyebrow.

“All right so far. They were right, you know.” Wes’s voice turned serious. “If Zsinj got wind that one Kettch the Ewok pilot was fake, he’d scrutinize the Hawkbat identities more closely than we can afford.”

“I know.” That was the most irritating thing about the whole debacle. Wedge couldn’t fault any of the team for doing what they did, or even how they went about it.

But did they have to give him gray hairs while doing it?

Wes took pity on him. “Phanan offered his glass prowler for sale — apparently agricultural espionage is big on Chrylor — and let the potential buyers hear Squeaky making all kinds of Ewok noises in the back of the shuttle. The identity thieves eventually showed up to make the Wraiths stop impersonating them, everyone got in a nice brawl, the glass prowler bit someone’s nose, and the good guys won.”

Wedge pointed at the datapad. “What’s this last line about? _Acquired new personnel specialist in verisimilitude?_ ” 

“They, um, rescued a hostage.” Wes’s mouth twitched. “And I think you need to hear his story yourself, Wedge. Keep an open mind.”

The Pit of Carkoon seemed to open in Wedge’s stomach. “Who is it, Wes?”

The door opened.

Face and Phanan walked in and stood at attention. Between them was a third figure, short, stout and furry, dressed in a miniature New Republic flight suit.

“Meet the new Lieutenant Kettch,” said Janson. “He can’t fly, but he has a great warrior’s yell that should impress Zsinj in person. It’ll make your hair stand on end.”

“Yub yub!” cried the Ewok. Then he saluted.

Face and Phanan stoically withstood the force of their commander’s glare. Wes seemed to revel in it.

“Somehow,” said Wedge, “this is all your fault.”

“Yub yub, Commander.” Wes grinned.

The Ewok raised a clenched fist. “Yub yub!”


End file.
